


You And Me Alone

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Take Me To The Stars [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Flirting, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 13:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16064081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: It's only dancing, Clara tells herself, but her dance partner isn't usually from Gallifrey - and certainly isn't a very familiar Time Lady...





	You And Me Alone

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlsu7RhOnsQ), which always evokes a wonderful image of Jodie and Jenna dancing together in character when I listen to it.
> 
> Also, I finally got off my gay ass and collated my Thirteen/Clara fics into a series. Y'all are welcome.

Clara was not new to this. Well, not to elements of ‘this,’ at least – she had certainly danced before. She recalled awkward, stilted, self-conscious bopping at school discos and later a sweatier version of the same at nightclubs; she recalled terse attempts at waltzing with second and third cousins at weddings; and she recalled just throwing caution to the wind and dancing around her room with wild abandon at… all stages of her life, frankly, not that she’d be happy to admit to that. 

What was new, in this instance, was her dance partner. If you could call her a ‘dance partner’ at all – the term denoted a formal, uptight affair with a suit and tie involved, and frankly, this was neither. This had more in common with those solo bedroom rave sessions than anything else, although this time, she was neither solo nor dressed in any type of loungewear. She was garbed in clothes of the style she had once favoured, many decades and worlds away, and she was grateful for the ease of movement afforded to her by the mid-length dress she had picked that morning. 

More importantly, she was accompanied by a loose limbed Time Lady in a long blue coat, who was jamming around the chairs and tables of the diner with the kind of carefree self-confidence that one normally only sees in very small children, as yet untouched by the worldly notion of embarrassment. Whirling on the spot in a blur of bright colours and golden hair, she affixed Clara with a beaming smile, her cheeks red from the exertion, and shucked off her coat in one fluid movement. 

“S’hot, this dancing lark!” she enthused, holding out her hands to the tiny immortal who was currently leaning against the counter, simply watching her partner get her groove on. Clara would have once felt self-conscious to be seen dancing at all, let alone with reckless abandon, but there was something so effortlessly effusive about the Doctor’s enthusiasm that loaned itself to an infectious lack of self-awareness and an increase in confidence. So it was that rather than protesting, Clara stepped forwards, placing her hands in the Time Lady’s and allowing herself to be moved to the rhythm of the song. 

“You’re all stiff,” the Doctor complained, shaking Clara’s arms and laughing as the immortal forced them to become limp, letting them flop around like those of an oversized doll. “That’s better.” 

Throwing caution to the wind, Clara allowed herself to get lost in the song, moving around and with the Doctor as though in some kind of non-verbal, pre-arranged routine; both of them as in tune as if they were one being. For an individual with a startling lack of grace or coordination in her daily life, the Doctor moved with fluidity when she danced, allowing the music to take hold of her and shut down her higher brain functions – or so she’d once told Clara, then tapped her temple and made a comment about an electric guitar that Clara had half-smiled at. 

Truthfully, it was all still new, and they were still learning – not only each other, but this place and their roles. She had been his carer, in his words, but now she was… well, almost a responsible adult, as she had been for the face before last, and yet this was different in a myriad of ways – Bow-Tie had known his place in the world, but this version of the Gallifreyan was unsure even of that. 

When the fluid link between the two finally severed and they collided, mid spin, they simply stayed in place, leaning against each other in companionable restfulness. The Time Lady’s breath was shaky and euphoric, and Clara’s would have been had she breath to lose – she remembered the sensation, and allowed the memory of that to fill her until it was as though she could, once again, no longer catch her breath. 

“You don’t have to pretend for me,” the Doctor murmured, her arms sliding down to rest on Clara’s waist, and instinctively Clara allowed her weight to lean more wholly against the Time Lady, letting herself be held in a way that she had once considered an impossibility. 

“Pretend what?” she asked, turning her face sideways and resting her cheek against the Doctor’s chest, listening to the dual beating of her hearts and imagining, for a second, that one was hers.

“You don’t have to pretend to be… y’know. Conventionally alive,” the Doctor shrugged, Clara finding her head jerked up and down with the motion. “You’re not, and that’s fine.”

“You know, by the end of the last face, you used to have more tact.” 

“And you used to be conventionally alive, and yet here we both are now.” 

“You…” Clara swallowed at the bluntness of the statement; the brusqueness in the Doctor’s tone catching her unawares. She pulled away from the embrace enough to see her partner’s eyes. “Are you cross?”

“No,” the Doctor blinked at her in stunned stupefaction, and Clara could tell by the absolute befuddlement in her gaze that the words had not been intended to wound. “No, I never… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be abrupt.” 

“I just…” Clara closed her eyes, seeking to avoid the sudden look of guilt on the Time Lady’s face and instead burrowing into the Doctor’s chest, trying not to feel stung. “I’m aware you fell in love with someone who was alive.”

“And you fell in love with someone who didn’t have a frankly cracking taste in clothes or blonde hair or a broad Yorkshire accent,” the Doctor noted, and Clara chuckled. “But I think it’s safe to say you’re still in love with me.”

There was a beat of silence, and then the Time Lady added, in a more panicked voice:

“You _are_ still in love with me, aren’t you? I’m not making a tit of myself?” 

“Of course I’m still in love with you,” Clara hummed, looking up at the Doctor and smiling, her earlier panic and hurt assuaging in an instant in the face of the Doctor’s flare of vulnerability. “Very much so.” 

“And you know I love you,” the Time Lady pressed a kiss to her forehead. “But then of course… that leaves poor Yaz.” 

“Still mooning after you?” 

“Oh yes.”

“Still aware it’s a lost cause?” 

“Very much so.” 

“Poor thing,” Clara’s mouth quirked up into a grin nonetheless. “I mean, I can’t say I blame her. Mad, adorable woman crashes out of the sky… it’s pretty impressive, you know? I don’t blame her for falling head over heels for you – you fell head over heels and pretty much _onto_ her.” 

“Didn’t I basically fall out of the sky for you as well? Do I detect a hint of jealousy?” 

“No, you showed up dressed as a monk,” Clara reminded her, grinning at the recollection. “And then we _both_ fell out of the sky, in a plane.” 

“Right.” 

“It was… really quite something.” 

“I think I’ve still got that monk outfit somewhere. And the address of the monastery. We should turn up sometime and give them the fright of their lives – I don’t think half of them have ever so much as _seen_ a woman, let alone two. Let alone two who are in love and holding hands. I think they’d about have a fit.”

“You’re terribly bad sometimes.” 

“You like the idea,” the Doctor put her hand on Clara’s cheek, thumb brushing the corner of her mouth. “You’re trying not to smile, I can tell.” 

“You’re annoying.” 

“No, I’m cute,” the Time Lady preened. “And also very, very clever. I have a whole book of your faces, remember?” 

“Not sure whether that’s cute or creepy. Erring towards creepy, but the sentiment is appreciated.” 

“Definitely cute. Helps me practice my faces, as well. I’m getting really good at shocked, and my listening face has come along leaps and bounds. Yours was a fine art, reckon it was all that teaching.” 

“Ah, so it might not be your face Yaz fancies – it might be my expressions?”

“That’s a distinct possibility, yes.” 

“You should bring her back,” Clara suggested, resting her hand on the Doctor’s sternum and smiling at the memory of their last visit. “All of them. I like knowing they’re looking after you, and I need to thank them.” 

“I can pass the message on, you know?”

“The message in question was actually going to be food, and you won’t pass it on. I know what you’re like, you bloody menace.”

“Sorry boss.” 

“Still not used to you eating, you know? I’ve got to up my game, you can’t live on chicken and chips from now until eternity.”

“I can too! I spent a long time living in a calorie deficit, remember? So, I need to make up for it now, and chicken and chips is the ideal solution. Speaking of which, I’m starving. Dancing really makes you hungry, huh?” 

“So does saving the world,” Clara reminded her, and the Time Lady grinned as the memory of the previous few hours returned. “And so does what I’d like to do with you after dinner…” 

The Doctor’s furious blush was enough to reduce her to laughter, and as the song restarted, Clara spun away from her partner, inviting and daring her to follow.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to submit any ideas or requests for a Thirteen/Clara piece, you can do so [here.](http://universe-on-her-shoulders.tumblr.com/ask)


End file.
